


non-definitive acts

by lymricks



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 13:40:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lymricks/pseuds/lymricks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermann had thought, foolishly, that they would both sleep soundly if the world did not end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	non-definitive acts

There is a night, just one night, and far enough from the near-end of the world that it feels more than slightly ridiculous, that Hermann wakes up gasping. He’s sitting up in bed, wondering who is speaking German in his room--Newton, _really_ \--before he realizes the words are coming out of his mouth. They stop almost as abruptly as they started, and his palms are sweating, so he wipes them on his sheets.

It has been two months since the world did not end.

Hermann Gottlieb has not had a nightmare yet, but a quick analysis of his current psychical state indicates that he has officially had his first post-Drift nightmare. His heart is beating frantically in his chest, his palms are sweaty, his breath is frenzied, and of course, he’d been speaking. Hermann has, over the years, done many strange things. He has only once ever spoken in his sleep.

He brushes his fingers over his leg, thoughtful, and thinks about all the moments that have passed between that moment and this one. Then the world had been open, the sky a great expanse of blue above his head. His bedroom had seemed to him an entire nation, bigger than so many houses, and his mother--her smile sometimes so bright it hurt to look. She’d been proud of him, once, he thinks.

He wishes he knew the time. He had, in a fit of pique he blames entirely on Newton, destroyed his regulation clock on the day the world did not end. Newton had watched from the doorway, his mouth hanging open, as Hermann swept the clock off his end table with his cane, and then beat it to shards of plastic and gears.

“That’s quite enough of clocks, I think,” Hermann had said, looking over at his colleague. “There is an old cliche about mouths and flies, Dr. Geiszler.”

“N-Newt.” He’d stumbled over the correction, but closed his mouth. It was, perhaps in any case, a victory. Hermann had rarely succeeded in making Newton Geiszler stumble, although the reverse had been a frequent occurrence of the metaphorical _and_ literal sort.

The memory tugs at the corners of his mouth, and Hermann’s heart steadies in his chest.

It is then that he realizes the frantic beating had not, in fact, been the audible beating of his heart, but someone beating on his door. There are words, too, although they are drowned out by the _thumpthumpthump_ that is nearly rattling Hermann’s bones in his body.

“Yes,” he calls. “A moment, please.”

The thumping stops for a beat, then two, before starting up again with more vigour.

Hermann would like to answer the door immediately. He would like to stop the thumping, certain to wake up anyone lucky enough to be asleep, of course. More than that, though, he cannot quell the fear still curled tight around his spine. He’s unsure if it’s because a visitor this impatient could mean the worst--another incursion. Another arrival. Another breach--or if he’s frightened by the lingering scraps of the nightmare. 

His body is sleep stiff, however, and he needs a moment to get to the door. His leg is always worse when he wakes unexpectedly. There are reasons for that, but Hermann chooses to forget them. He does not choose to forget many things, and in the grand scheme of things, he can take perhaps that one liberty at this hour of the day with someone banging at his door.

The thumping is urgent enough that he doesn’t bother with any sort of robe. If it is worth this much noise, no one will remember his pajamas.

He opens the door, and Newton Geiszler is on the other side, his fist still raised to continue his incessant knock. The inertia carries his hand, and before Newton can stop it or Hermann can react, his fist bumps lightly against Hermann’s sternum.

Hermann had thought it impossible that Newton could look more horrified than he had when Hermann opened the door. He discovers it was merely improbable. Newton’s eyes, already blown, go wider.

“I am so sorry,” he says in a burst of syllables and flurried hand motions. “It just--it--” he scrubs at his hair for a second. “You were--it was a nightmare, I think. I hope. You were upset. Unless, I mean is someone _in there_? You would tell me if this was a hostage situation right, like with hand signals or some sort of tapping code with your cane?” Whatever had thrown Newton off has lifted. He pokes his head past Hermann into the room, peering around interestedly.

“There is no one here but me,” Hermann says pointedly. “Except for, of course, you. What are you doing lurking outside my quarters at--” he hesitates, unsure of the hour and trying to gauge it by the bags under Newton’s eyes.

“Just shy of four,” Newton contributes. “And I wasn’t lurking. I was in the lab and I--” he stops, his eyes going wide again. “Uh. Heard you.”

“You heard me,” Hermann echoes. Which is unhelpful, really, but some things bear repeating.

Newton rubs the back of his neck and shoves his hands into his pockets. He is rocking on his heels. He won’t meet Hermann’s gaze.

It is then that Hermann recognizes the utter absurdity of the moment. Newton, his shirt spattered and stained with something Kaiju-y (Hermann’s brain takes a moment to process the utter horror that it considers _Kaiju-y_ an acceptable adjective for anything), his hair wild, and his glasses slipping down his nose. Newton’s left shoe is untied, and Hermann thinks his pants might be unbuttoned. But Newton is nothing compared to Hermann, who stands glowering in his doorway, hair matted and still sweaty, in a flannel pajama set, clutching his cane, and barefoot.

The blush rises to his cheeks before he has time to stop it. “Oh come in, then,” he snaps. He backs carefully into his room, stepping to the side. Newton spills into Hermann’s space like he does into everything, like he knows it. Like he is intimately familiar with his secrets. After the drift, Hermann supposes that is true.

“I heard you,” Newton says, surer now. He punctuates it with a nod, still rocking slightly, but more still, too.

“From the lab,” Hermann finishes the sentence Newton had merely started.

Newton nods.

Hermann’s leg aches. His whole body does, actually. It is tense from hours spent fidgeting in bed, the result of an apparent nightmare. He wants to rest, but he isn’t sure how to go about asking Newton to leave. Newton looks like he perhaps needs rest as well. The bags under his eyes are deep ones.

Hermann had thought, foolishly, that they would both sleep soundly if the world did not end.

All at once, Hermann is every inch of him exhausted. He looks at Newton, and there must be something on his face, because something tightens around Newton’s eyes. “I am sorry to have--” _woken you_ , Hermann nearly says. He corrects himself at the last moment, “--disturbed you. I assure you, it will not happen again.”

Newton opens his mouth, looking skeptical, “I mean, but it wasn’t a hostage situation so clearly something is up, dude, and--”

Hermann’s fingers brush Newton’s throat as he places his hand on his colleagues shoulder. He had not intended the touch to be so intimate, but it has the desired effect. Newton goes quiet, his eyes locked on Hermann’s. “Goodnight, Newton,” Hermann says firmly. He tries not to look too hard at the bags under Newton’s eyes. “Rest well.”

There is a flash of something lingering in Hermann’s head that tells him Newton will not rest well. That he never truly has. Hermann lets that something flash across his brain and then tucks it in the dusty corners, where he keeps things like song lyrics, and the steps to tying his shoes. These are things he knows and cannot unknow, but which he does not think about.

His fingers are still on Newton’s shoulder. He can feel the warmth of the living human being below them, this creature of flesh and bone and more brain than either of them seem to know how to handle. He pulls his hand away quickly, smoothing down the front of his pajamas. Newton looks away almost instantly, scrubbing the back of his head again, his shoulders hunched.

“Are you sure, man?” Newton is looking at the floor. At Hermann’s feet. 

“Quite,” Hermann says, suddenly stiff and frustrated. “Tomorrow,” he says, moving toward the door. Newton follows, shuffling slightly, the scrape of his feet against the cold floor forcing Hermann to raise his voice, “We should discuss those samples you showed me this morning. I think there are some factors you are not evaluating to the fullest.”

Newton steps outside, looking mildly offended at Hermann’s attempt to change the conversation. “Wait, hold up, you are a _mathematician_ \--” Newton starts, which is not untrue.

Hermann nods once, tersely. “Goodnight, Newton,” he says, and shuts the door.

The walk back to the bed takes him longer than it should. His room feels darker than before. More silent. Of course, any room that Newton leaves feels silent, but this is different. This is tight, and the fear still taut through Hermann’s spine uncurls. When he sets his cane down and settles back beneath the blankets, he has to pretend that his hands are not shaking.

He does not remember the nightmare. He cannot decide if that is a good or a bad thing. 

The world did not end, he reminds himself. And he thinks it until he falls asleep. 

When morning comes, he is no more rested than he had been the night before. He wakes as he had earlier: shivering, his heart pounding, sweating, and speaking out loud. He closes his eyes and focuses on numbers. The basics are easy to recite, and his need for something as simple as multiplication tables makes him tense. Just as he had the night before, he reflects on the last time he sought out that simplicity and remembers the expansive blue of the sky. 

There is another memory, too. A day spent in the sunshine, the bricked sidewalk red beneath his feet. A pretty girl telling him about the research she is doing. She is impossibly smart, and he is infatuated without really knowing what that means. She’s holding a door open for him, and he thinks dully that is his job to be holding doors, that’s what his uncle always said, but beyond the door is a lab, and beyond the lab a future. He is too young for her flirting, and he is smart enough to know she is a gimmick to distract and enthrall him while his parents talk with important people about scholarships and potential, but he falls for it. He lets himself fall for it, because he has always had acquaintances, but her smile lights him up inside.

This is not Hermann’s memory, but it calms him enough that he stands, and showers, and dresses. 

When steps out of the door, although he does not know the time, he knows that he will be early to the mess. Two months since the world ended, and the Shatterdome is still open and more often than not filled to the brim with faces, some familiar and some new, everyone trying to figure out how to run things now that they have found the tomorrow, a whole slew of tomorrows. Hermann is uncomfortably aware that he has more tomorrows now than he knows what to do with. For ten years, every tomorrow was something of a pleasent surprise. Now they stretch out, finite in reality, but infinite in possibility. Hermann enjoys mathematical infinities. The metaphorical ones are less his area of expertise. But there are so many faces still in Hong Kong. Perhaps none of them know where they should be either. Dissipating back into the real world seems unlikely for many of them. There are some things that are hard to let go of, after all.

The door is not quite shut behind him when he sees the bundle of limbs and Kaiju-y shirt tucked against the wall just to the left of Hermann’s door. Newton is silent in sleep as he never is when he’s awake. His face is slack, not peaceful, but at least not tense, and he is curled so close in on himself that he looks even smaller than normal.

Hermann sighs loudly through his nose. He turns and marches back into the room, returning with a dry towel. He throws this over Newton’s sleeping form--perhaps if there had been less _Kaiju_ all over him, Newton would have warranted a real blanket. As it is, the towel will be easy to have cleaned. It won’t be missed if Hermann throws it out.

He does not wake Newton. There are only so many moments of quiet in his day, and he is not ready to give up the possibility of a calm breakfast after the long night still roiling in his belly, making his gaze dart to every corner, suspicious.

Still, he lingers for a moment in the hallway. There is no one around to see Hermann brush his fingers through Newton’s hair. There is no one around, with the exception of Hermann himself, to see Newton’s face and body settle in to something like peace.

Newton snorts and leans into the touch.

Hermann rolls his eyes. He is not awake enough for this.

When he walks away, his steps are quiet, and he tries his best not to smack his cane too loudly against the concrete floor.

After all, at least one of them deserves to sleep.

~

The second time it happens--or really, in the grand scheme of Hermann’s life, the third--he wakes up with a dry mouth and a curse dying on his lips. It has been a month since the first nightmare, and he had not expected it to be a reoccurring thing. He scrabbles at his chest, fighting with the vague sensation that something is earth-shatteringly wrong, and that he must _fix it_ now. He breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, and clutches helplessly at the blankets. 

There is a pounding at his door. 

Gingerly, Hermann extracts himself from the tangle of sheets. They are caught up in his legs and sticking to his skin. He hisses, fumbling for his cane and storming across the room. His chest feels tight, his head feels light. It manifests as anger.

“What could you _possibly_ require from me at this hour of the morning?” he snarls into Newton’s face.

Newton goes through a series of expressions, fear, horror, shock, and then surprise. He’s got bags under his eyes darker than Hermann’s seen in a long time. Newton rubs his hands against his thighs and rolls on the balls of his feet. “Uh, hi, Hermann,” he says, his eyes darting everywhere but Hermann. “Still uh, no hostage crisis?”

Newton breaths out hard through his teeth. The rush of air tickles Hermann’s sweat damp chest, and he shivers.

Tickles. His chest.

Hermann glances down at himself in acute horror. He is, thank goodness, clad in his typical flannel bottoms. The same can not be said for his top half. They have been fighting a faulty system all week, and the Shatterdome has been alternating between blistering heat and biting cold. Tonight has been hot, the air heavy with Hong Kong’s humidity. Hermann is shirtless and barefoot in the hallway of his place of work. He blames this resolutely on Newton and steps back, intent on slamming the door in his colleague’s face and going back to bed.

Newton has a hand out and splayed against the door before Hermann can carry out the action, however, and he still won’t look at Hermann, but there is something determined about his stance. “No, wait, hold on a second,” Newton says, all in a rush. 

“While I appreciate your many strengths,” Hermann says, his voice heavy with disdain, “I cannot imagine any universe in which your ability to stop a heavy metal door from closing in your face is one of them. Good _night_ , Dr. Geiszler.”

“I can’t sleep!” 

It explodes from Newton’s chest in a shout, and Hermann takes a step back, stumbles, rights himself, and settles back into a glare. “And that is my concern...?”

“Because it’s _your_ fault, dude!”

Newton is still shouting. Hermann grabs his arm and shoves him into the room. Either psychical strength is one of Hermann’s new blessings, or he caught Newton off balance. Newton stumbles and falls, landing hard on his knees. Hermann should apologize. He watches Newton lift himself up and stand, his gaze resolute, if still not meeting Hermann’s own.

It is only then that Hermann realizes how tired Newton looks. He holds himself upright, but it seems to Hermann only barely. His whole stance is drooping, so that every few seconds Newton straightens himself up again. Hermann has been that tired before. He knows it well enough to recognize it.

“I can’t sleep,” Newton says again, this time a little desperation hanging at the edges of the words. “And you know, whatever. I never sleep well, super not a big deal. I’m ok with very little sleep, but Hermann, I _can’t_ sleep, and it definitely has something to do with you. So can we like, talk? Maybe?”

“Newton,” Hermann says, “It’s...”

Three months after the world did not end, and Hermann still has no clock. It is just one more absurdity to add to all the others, but this one startles a laugh out of him. He is distantly aware that he may be slightly hysterical. 

Newton is wearing a hastily buttoned shirt over nothing, and his briefs. His knees are bleeding. There is Geiszler blood on Hermann’s floor. He cannot stop the second giggle.

“It’s 3:45, man, and christ, are you laughing? Seriously. God, you are such an _asshole_!” The vehemence with which Newton speaks startles Hermann. He quells his laughter, attempting to be serious. 

“My--” Hermann hiccups and sits down hard in his desk chair. The motion makes him wince. “My apologies, Newton.” He rubs absently on his leg. “I simply do not understand the relationship between your inability to sleep and myself. As any first year student could tell you, cor--”

“Correlation does not equal causation, yeah, I get it Hermann. But I’m not a first year student, ok? So cut me some fucking slack here and trust me.”

“I do.”

The honesty startles Hermann even more than Newton’s outburst had, and he ducks his gaze quickly. It is the first time this evening that Newton tries to meet his gaze. They are both silent for several minutes, but Newton is breathing hard enough to fill the room with sound. Hermann stands again, his body protesting the flurry of activity at this time of the morning. “Newton,” Hermann says, “I think perhaps you should sit down.”

Newton drops down onto Hermann’s bed and lets his head hang down, his elbows on his knees. Hermann had not meant to imply that Newton should make himself comfortable on the bed, but here they are. Newton’s knees are still bleeding. It’s a steady drip down the front of his legs. Hermann sighs and marches into the bathroom. He comes back with a first aid kit and drags his desk chair in front of the bed. He lowers himself down and sets his cane to the side. He looks up once he’s opened the kit to see Newton examining him curiously.

“What are you doing?”

Hermann sighs again. “I am cleaning your knees,” he says. “If you insist on sitting on my bed, I must insist that you not get blood all over my linens.”

Newton goes quiet again, his fingers fidgeting where he’s now gripping the edges of the bed. Hermann swabs at Newton’s knees to clean them. Newton hisses out through his teeth and nearly scoots away. “Ouch.”

Hermann raises an eyebrow, “Oh, but you must be kidding me,” he says. “You, covered in tattoos, and you’re--pained by whatever chemicals they stock these kits with?”

“You try it sometime, dude,” Newton answers, frowning. 

“Newton,” Hermann says a few moments later, “It is quite difficult to put bandages on your knees while you are bouncing them.”

“Oh.” Newton looks down and frowns at his knees, like he’s surprised they’ve been moving. “Sorry about that.” 

When the bandages have been applied and Hermann has disposed of the bloodied supplies, he returns to find Newton asleep in his bed. Newton sleeps with his back to the wall, curled in on himself so tightly that just looking makes Hermann wince in sympathy. Newton is on top of the blankets, but his knees are bandaged and his legs now blood free on the outside, so Hermann tosses the corner of the duvet over him. 

Newton snuffles slightly, which Hermann would find endearing if he were being honest with himself. He is, however, being resolutely dishonest, and so he merely turns off the light he does not remember turning on, and sinks beneath the covers, as much space between himself and Newton as possible.

It is ridiculous that the distance between them feels so tangible. He can estimate within an acceptable margin of error exactly how many millimeters are between himself and Newton. He knows, logically, that he cannot possibly feel Newton’s breath on his neck, but he does. He is certain he does. 

Hermann is thinking of MIT again. It is a campus he had visited only twice, both times for guest lectures he had not wanted to give. He remembers how out of place he felt amongst that group of students. He can picture Newton amongst them, although that is not Hermann’s own memory. Always, while he is a student, a few feet of space between himself and the others. Hermann had always sat in perfect ordered rows at school. Newton--Newton had surrounded himself in chaos, even in his classes. The memories merge, and as he remembers the student body sprawling out in front of him, many of them attentive, some of them not, he thinks that he remembers Newton amongst them. Of course, he doesn’t. Newton was not there. Hermann believes that he would remember that for certain, not just tangled in the faint remains of what can only be Newton’s memories.

The girl from the original memory, what Hermann now thinks of as Newton’s tour of MIT, makes only a few more appearances. In one, she is handing Newton drink after drink, “Check out boy genius,” she says, and it is cruel, and Newton is thinking that she is so pretty, just one more, just two more, and she will--. Of course, she doesn’t do anything. Newton wakes up feeling foggy, surrounded by empty bottles. He is alone. He does not know where he is. He’s in a house, so he extracts himself and drags his teenage body out onto the porch, where he throws up all over his shoes. Someone is in the house behind him, _nonono don’t let them see, don’t let her see--_ , “Oh my god!” her voice too loud and like shrapnel, “Check out boy genius, oh my _god_ ,” she does not stop laughing even as he stumbles down the steps, half running, he just--

“Hermann?”

Hermann sits up and looks to the side. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he feels like he just woke up. “Newton?”

“You’ve been talking in your sleep for like, ten minutes dude, and I’m not going to lie to you, it sounds like you’re talking as _me_ in your sleep which is like, twelve layers too many of creepy for me.”

“My apologies,” Hermann says, because what else does one say to that? He isn’t sure. He’s still in the vestiges of the dream, and looking Newton in the face, so close to him now, is strange. Sharing a bed is strange. Everything about every single moment of the last several years of his life has been strange, and he hasn’t hated it. Still, he is talking in his sleep again, and having nightmares--although they are not always his. “You should go back to sleep,” Hermann says firmly, when Newton opens his mouth again. If Newton gets started talking now, he may never stop, and Hermann thinks they both deserve a little rest.

Outside, he thinks--though it is a guess, he does not have a clock--the sun might be rising, now. It may be well risen, and at some point, someone--Tendo, most likely--will realize they are not where they should be, and he will come looking. For now, Hermann’s quarters are quiet, aside from Newton’s relentless shifting, and neither of them are sleeping in the hallways, and already, Newton is snuffling quietly, and Hermann’s shaking has stopped.

Well. He supposes that after all they’ve been through, they’re allowed unorthodox comfort. He closes his eyes again, and listens to Newton breath until he falls asleep.

~

Whatever relationship they have in the early hours of the morning does not extend very far into the work day. Hermann closes his eyes for the tenth time in an hour, and smacks his cane against the floor. “Dr. Geiszler,” he says from his side of the room. “Is it necessary for you to narrate your--”

“Don’t interrupt, _Hermann_ ,” Newton cries, dropping the beaker he’s holding. It shatters, loudly, and Hermann breaks his chalk against the board. He sucks in a sharp breath and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Whoops,” Newton says. “Don’t worry. That wasn’t corrosive. Well. Not _very_ corrosive.”

No one is trying to shut down operations in Hong Kong, precisely, but there has been a modest effort to scale things back. It is a slow and often counterintuitive process. Memos keep arriving that say, in imprecise language, that non essential persons and operations should be slowly phased out. No one within the actual Shatterdome seems in a rush to leave, however, and funding is stronger than ever. Each new equipment request he and Newton enter is filled lightning quick. Newton is experimenting with the ordering process, asking for bigger, more expensive (and often more frivolous) equipment. He’s testing the limits. He wants to know where the lines are drawn, and it amuses Hermann for the most part, although it can be frustrating. Always that dichotomy with Newton--affection and frustration bundled so tightly together that Hermann, more often than not, feels both at once.

Still, their lab division helps maintain a semblance of sanity. Even now, three months out, the line still stands strong between them. Or, it had, but when Hermann turns around, the ‘not very corrosive’ something Newton had spilled is eating steadily at the floor. “Oh for goodness’s sake,” Hermann grumbles. “Are you planning to clean that up?”

Newton is writing furiously on a pad, and he looks up at Hermann’s words, nudging his glasses back into place thoughtfully. “Yes, just not right away. Look what it’s doing to the metal! That’s new, I think…” Newton trails off. “Oh, and you’ve got chalk on your nose.”

Hermann’s face heats up, and he pulls a handkerchief out, scrubbing furiously. He should have wiped his hands before touching his face, but he is _tired_ , and Newton is ridiculous.

Absolutely ridiculous.

“Gentlemen!”

The word is startling and foreign. For a moment, Hermann and Newton stare at each other with something resembling confusion. Certainly, neither of them had spoken, and now their argument has been interrupted and--

Tendo saunters out from behind a disorganized pile of something that certainly belongs to Newton and not to Hermann.

Hermann curses under his breath. It isn’t that he doesn’t enjoy Tendo’s presence--he very much does, but now is not the time. He is tired; it has been a long week. There are days when he and Newton rub each other raw, pushing and pushing until there is no coming back. Today has been one of those days--every day this week has been one of those days. “How is everything?” Tendo practically singsongs it. He looks happy--and he should, with a baby and a wife safe for the foreseeable future, and what Newton calls ‘sweet new digs’ in a swanky new apartment building for the three of them. “What do you think about a night on the town?” Tendo asks. 

Tendo is a good friend, Hermann thinks. One of the many he has gained in the aftermath of the near-apocalypse. He supposes that makes him lucky. Today, it merely makes him frustrated.

He hasn’t had a nightmare in three weeks, which is a relief, but he cannot shake the nagging feeling that something isn’t quite what it should be. It isn’t that he looks for Newton at nights, but he does find that even his best nights are not as well-passed as the few they’ve now spent in each others company. Even if Newton had slept outside Hermann’s door for one of those two.

Newton, if it’s possible, looks even less rested than Hermann. He is scattered, and his hands skitter over his desk, always searching for something. He does not hold still often, but of late, he seems even less inclined. If Hermann were more--well, perhaps if he were better--the phrase escapes him, but he feels that he should be more concerned. Or rather, that he should act on his concern in some other way than being angry with Newton. It is fair to neither of them, and puts a strain on their working relationship. 

“Hermann, the nice man asked you a question,” Newton calls. Hermann opens his mouth to remind Newton that Tendo had inquired after the both of them, and that Newton has just as much of an obligation to respond, but Newton doesn’t let him get a word in edgewise. He continues: “Oh man, look at that. Tendo, man, come check this out! Look what it’s doing to the _metal_ , there has to be a use for that. Here, just let me--” and then Newton pours more of whatever he’d dropped onto the floor. “See, look, it’s not doing anything to like, the tape or the dust. Just the floor--I wonder if I add even more--”

“Oh well, yes Newton, please continue destroying the laboratory. I’m sure they can just find us another one.”

“They probably could, dude. We just saved the world and everything. Besides, this is all in the name of _science_ , and improving quality of life and shit. Plus it’s just _really cool_. C’mon Herrrrmmman,” he draws the word out, rolling his Rs. “You know it’s cool. Hey! I wonder what it would do to leather. Can I borrow your shoe?”

Hermann, for a moment, sees red. He wants to smack his cane against the nearest hard surface, but that’s never even phased Newton. So he spits out, with as much venom and disdain as he can gather, “Well, check out _boy genius_.”

Newton goes absolutely white. It would be amusing if it weren’t so horrifying. It is the only visible reaction he has to the words. “Oh, right. Okay, so not your shoe then,” he says, speaking fast and high. “Maybe later. Tendo, pass on the night out--I have a report that I’ve been putting off, and I have this order to put in, and I really need to get in contact with a guy about some eyeballs, and…” 

He drops the next three things he picks up in quick succession. Each one shatters as it hits the ground. Newton continues, “...and also, a broom. I really need a broom. I actually don’t think we have one here, and like. I’m going to go find one!” 

With one last dropped set of tweezers--they clang loudly in the suddenly silent room--Newton makes his exit. 

Tendo blinks and turns to Hermann. “I have the broom right here?” he says like it’s a question. He’s holding it out in front of him like a sword. Hermann scrubs at his face. Tendo stares.

“Yes?” Hermann says shortly. He should go find Newton.

“Nothing,” Tendo answers, holding up his hands in a placating way. “It’s just, you look just like Newt when you do that.” 

“Indeed. Well. I’m afraid I must also decline your invitation, but thank you on behalf of myself and Dr. Geiszler. Perhaps Mako might join you.”

Hermann turns, picks up his broken chalk, and begins to write again. For a long time, Tendo watches him, silent. Finally he leaves, the door echoing in his wake.

Hermann sets the broken chalk down carefully and leans his forehead against the chalkboard, taking very deep, very slow breaths. Newton does not return to the lab, and so hours pass before someone pulls Hermann aside to tell him that his forehead is covered in chalk. 

~

Newton is, of course, not inclined to stop talking to Hermann. He continues, as is his wont, to talk at Hermann in inane bursts of facts. Their conversations, however, over the next several days are stilted at best, a fact more Hermann’s fault than Newton’s. Whatever he had broken between them had cracked quite cleanly, and although Newton narrates his exploits in science with as much vigour as always, there is an undeniable gap between the two of them.

Hermann’s hesitation to lose his temper with Newton can only really exacerbate their newfound inability to connect, but each time he is tempted, he remembers the callousness with which he spoke and flushes before turning resolutely away. And so they exist as little in each other’s worlds as they can manage. It is not their best or most productive time.

Newton’s hands stutter over tables. 

Hermann keeps breaking his chalk.

“I asked for these reports last week, gents,” Herc Hansen says to them the sixth blustery morning after their--and it can’t even be called a fight, so Hermann thinks of it as a fracturing. Herc’s face is creased in a frown. “Of all the people in this Shatterdome, I expect this tardiness the least of you both.” He is disappointed and stern, at ease in his newfound command role, if not at peace with it. “I expect them on my desk by Friday, and _you_ ,” Herc waves his finger at the two of them, each standing framed in opposite corners of the room, all the lab they can fit between them, “You can both expect not to be able to hide behind Mako this time. Any questions?”

“What about that is unclear?” Newton asks, “No. We don’t have any questions. It’ll get done.” It’s rude, but to his credit, Herc takes it in stride, fixing Newton with a stern look for a moment before looking to Hermann, who shifts his weight and remains silent. “Right,” Herc says finally. “That’s good, then.”

There’s an awful kind of silence that fills the room once Herc leaves it, and Hermann knows with an ugly certainty that it is his fault. When he finally speaks, it is not at all what he wants to say. “I believe it is your turn to do the bulk of the writing, Dr. Geiszler,” he says. “You will find my analyses on your tablet within the next few moments. I will correct your work in the morning.”

He leaves soon after, his plot points on energy around the Breach in the weeks, months, years leading up to the opening forwarded on to Newton. They have very little information. No one was looking for the Breach to appear until it did, and it took him much longer than he is comfortable with to even identify it accurately. Hermann doubts this new report will be of any use as a predictive model. He has made that as clear as he can, and hopes that they will be better prepared in the future following Tendo and Newton’s own contributions. Perhaps the three of them could save the world a second time. He rather hopes they don’t have to. 

At the door, he hesitates. Newton is leaning over the tablet. His elbows are on the table, his chin in his hands, his body bent at the waste. He is biting his lip and tapping his foot as he reads. Every few seconds, Newton adjusts his glasses. Hermann watches him for several moments before he finally leaves.

He does not say goodnight, but still, just before the door closes, Newton’s voice rings out. “Night, Herm,” before it is swallowed by the slamming door.

~

When Hermann wakes up, he is not screaming, or sweating, or cursing. He _is_ whispering, but it is faint and in English, a dying passage of sound that hardly even echoes. He drops his chin onto his chest and breaths. He does not open his eyes. His chest is tight and panicked, but in a distant way, and he finds comfort and purchase in the sheets he is clutching again.

There is something _wrong_. 

As he does with the panic, Hermann feels distant from this knowledge. His stomach does not tighten or roil. His palms are dry. And yet. Still.

He stands and dresses, all the while taking inventory of his body. His leg aches. His heartbeat is calm. His motions are collected and smooth, he does not fumble with the buttons of his shirt or pants. And yet. Still. He cannot shake the feeling that something is terribly, horribly out of sync. He does not feel rushed, but cannot stand to take the time to put on a vest or jacket. He barely can muster the patience for shoes. He has a driving urge to run and get somewhere soon, and fast, and _now_ , but he cannot figure out why.

He steps out in the hall feeling naked in only a button up, his shoes, and a pair of slacks. He forgets about all that the moment he hears the first scream.

He isn’t alone in the hallway. There are two engineers approaching him, on the late shift, probably going to the mess for coffee or a pastry. They don’t look alarmed, even as his speed picks up, even as he slams his cane and passes them. The screaming continues, and so do they, in the opposite direction, as though they hear nothing at all. That frightens him, because Hermann is a logical man and if he is hearing screams outside his bedroom that no one else can hear, then that leaves only one option. Newton is in trouble. He is disconcerted that that is the conclusion he reaches so easily, but he files that inquiry away to examine later.

Hermann doesn’t run, but he does something close, his hand out to catch himself on the wall with each hiccup in his forward motion. He’s never felt like he lives far from the lab, but he does now. The once familiar corridors of the Shatterdome stretch out in front of him in never ending, malicious spirals. It seems that no matter how many corners he turns, there are fifteen more.

When he finally reaches the lab, he half falls inside of it. Newton is there. There is no one else. His lips are moving--he’s calling out in German, and English, and a strange blend of Japanese and--Russian? Hermann’s brain processes the languages as his body moves closer and closer to Newton, who is alone, who is not in danger, who is having a nightmare. 

“Newton,” Hermann says, his voice firm. “Newton you are having a nightmare. Wake up.” The lab stretches into an eternity, and finally Hermann is there, and can reach out and wrap his fingers around a shaking shoulder.

This touch does not have the effect Hermann had predicted it would. Often his touch has a calming effect on Newton--almost as though he’s melting. Hermann always ends up feeling like he’s propping Newton up right before he falls asleep, and it takes Newton more than a few seconds to straighten up and resume whatever he’d been doing. Tonight, however, Newton’s eyes shoot open and he throws himself from the chair. Hermann smashes against the desk Newton had been sleeping in front of, and cannot contain a high-pitched, pained yelp as his good hip bashes into the desk’s corner.

Newton stands bent at the waist, mumbling something that sounds like “Sorrysorrysorry.” His arms are curled around his middle, and he stays like that for several moments before he straightens up. “Herm,” he greets, clearing his throat. “It’s still kinda early for you to be ready to check my work, dontcha think?” Newton plays at nonchalance. Hermann would be unimpressed if he weren’t so baffled. There are a thousand things in his brain, and he can really only lay claim to around two hundred of the things right on the surface. His hip aches where he’d hit it, and his chest is still tight with panic. He closes his eyes to steady himself and sees

_redbrickssolovely treesahouseahomealake momsproud therearesomanydimplomas whyisthisrobesohot needleneedleneedleneedaneedlecalm shesprettyandsmartIthinkshelikesme butshedoesntknowthatnow lookatallthesethingsIvedone momsproud needlecolorink Hermannstuffykindpricklywarm ajolthivemindcomingtheyarecoming formelookingfor meandthenababyitsjustababy diebabydienodontgostaybabylittlebabywillbe herewithmealwaysherewithmehermantoo_.

There are more, but they are hard to name, flashes of dark, frightening color that Hermann knows from his own experience drifting with the Kaiju are the Anteverse. He _recognizes_ them, even if his mind will never be certain on their articulation.

Hermann opens his eyes. “I heard you,” he offers as an explanation, echoing Newton’s words from a few months before. “You were...upset.”

Newton scrubs at his face, and Hermann fights the urge to mimic the gesture. “Sorry about that, man. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

He brushes past Hermann and picks up the tablet. Newton’s hands are shaking. “That’s quite expensive,” Hermann scolds. He holds his hand out and takes the tablet from Newton’s fingers. When he drops it unceremoniously onto a pile of things on Newton’s desk, and everything topples off the side and onto the floor, Newton laughs. It’s a faint thing, but he laughs. Hermann watches him for a moment, the way he jitters, the way his hands aren’t holding on to anything. On instinct, he reaches out, clasping one of Newton’s trembling hands in his own. Newton’s palm is damp with sweat, but Hermann knows with certainty that he would not let go of Newton for anything on this Earth, or any other.

“Newton,” Hermann starts, then stops, squeezing Newton’s hand. “ _Newt._ I owe you an apology. It would have been unacceptable of me to use your memories--memories that I would not be in possession of had you not trusted me enough to give me access--to hurt you were we alone, let alone in front of a colleague. It was--it was thoughtless of me, and you did not deserve it.” 

Newton is gaping at him. “Flies and mouths,” Hermann chides him gently. The words end in something as a squeak when Newton yanks him in and embraces him. Hermann drops his cane in surprise, but it isn’t a problem. Newton takes his weight with ease, his face slotting into the space between Hermann’s shoulder and throat. Newton’s nose is cold, and his glasses are jammed uncomfortably against Hermann’s skin. Letting go does not even cross Hermann’s mind. 

When Newton pulls away--gently, and slowly until Hermann leans his weight on the desk--there is sweat on Hermann’s collar and he’s sure snot as well. He cannot bring himself to care. There’s not even a speck of anything _Kaiju-y_ anywhere on either of them, and that’s---well, it isn’t quite the improvement Hermann had expected. Newton at least has stopped shaking, and the panic in Hermann’s chest has loosened. He hasn’t worked out the specifics of whatever connection these nightmares have forged--or perhaps reassembled--between them, but he acknowledges now that his panic was Newton’s panic, and they have both calmed somewhat.

Still, it is--he glances at the clock--coming on five in the morning and neither of them have slept well. “Take a seat, Newt,” Hermann says, and pointedly ignores the look of shock on Newton’s face. “I think a cup of tea is in order.” He lowers himself and collects his cane. He turns to walk away, toward a refrigerator that is no doubt empty, _once again_ of his carrots. Newton grabs his wrist before he gets very far.

“I--” Newton starts. He coughs and ducks his gaze. “I think coffee is--I think we should have coffee. Or I should have coffee. I have to finish that report.”

Hermann tips his head in acknowledgement. “True, Dr. Geiszler,” he says, thoughtful. “Very well. You go to the mess and procure coffee for us. I will look over what you’ve completed so far, and we will finish the report together.”

There’s a flash of _formewithme_ and then Newton is bounding out the door. Hermann sits, propping his cane against the desk and leaning forward to begin reading. Newton is not long with the coffees, and he pulls up a chair, draping himself familiarly across Hermann’s shoulders. 

They turn the report in on time. The whole thing was...rather pleasant. 

~

On Sunday morning Hermann sleeps in and brews tea in his room. The world did not end. There isn’t much to do with that report turned in, and he is too contented when he wakes up to leave and consider what the weather tells him is the truth--that it is blustery and cold outside, that it is grey and raining. So he stays in bed longer than he should and dresses slowly, finishing two cups of tea before his stomach rumbles insistently enough for him to leave. He still doesn’t have a clock, but his tablet tells him it is just after nine. He had not slept in so late, then. He is relieved.

When he steps outside, he nearly trips over Newton.

“Uhm,” Newton says sleepily when Hermann nudges him with his cane, then, more aware: “Hello. Good morning!”

“I’m hungry,” Hermann says. “Perhaps we should both go eat.”

“Ok!” Newton agrees, hauling himself to his feet. He talks loudly about Kaiju excrement until Hermann jabs him with his cane.

~

It happens again on Monday, Newton sleeping in a curled up lump against the cold metal wall. And on Tuesday. And Wednesday. 

Hermann is perplexed by this thing that is clearly becoming a habit. Newton never mentions it during the days, and the one time Hermann had tried to bring it up, Newton had set something on fire. Privately, Hermann thinks it was on purpose. Newton claims it was an accident. In any case, they were busy with said fire for several hours, and by the time Hermann remembered that he’d asked a question in the first place, he was already in bed.

By Wednesday evening, he has had enough. His stomach feels nervous again, and he pauses on his way out. “Are you finished for this evening?” he asks Newton, hovering in the doorway to the lab.

“Mhmm,” Newton says, and nothing else, because he has no less than three pens in his mouth, and three books in each hand. 

“I have a book I think you might enjoy,” Hermann says. He’s determined to be casual about it. There is nothing embarrassing about any of this. Certainly. Nothing. “Would you care to walk back with me so that I may retrieve it for you?”

Newton moves to take the pens out of his mouth, cannot because of the books, and then spits all three onto the floor. Hermann presses his fingertips to the bridge of his nose. “Chalk!” Newton shouts, “You will have chalk on your face again Herm, this is getting silly--” Newton moves quickly, closing the distance between them. It does not occur to Hermann to flinch away from his trajectory, this moving object ready to slam up against him. Newton licks his thumb and uses it to, presumably, scrub the chalk off of Hermann’s face.

Hermann sputters. “ _Newton!_ ” he says sharply, trying entirely too late to back away. 

“No wait, hold on, I’ve almost got it--”.

“For goodness sake,” Hermann half shouts, “You have _six doctorates_ surely you can find a tissue of some sort-- _Newt!_.”

Newton beams at him. “All set,” he says. “Come on, lets go find that book you were talking about.”

Newton steers Hermann from the room and Hermann lets him, despite the pens still on the floor, and the books strewn haphazardly across both halves of the room. He’s unsure when that division became so non existent for them. Perhaps when Newton melted the floor underneath. 

~

They have been standing in his quarters for five whole minutes before Newton finally says, “So we haven’t said anything since we got here. And I think--I mean, you said there was a book?”

Hermann, lingering by his stacks of texts, looks at them disinterestedly. There are any number of books here that he could lend to Newton, perhaps even many that Newton has not read and would enjoy. Those will keep another day, however, and Hermann had ulterior motives when he’d extended the invitation. Newton has been sleeping outside of Hermann’s quarters for more nights than is strictly advisable. Hermann has been disconcerted to note that he does in fact sleep better with his proverbial guard dog, but Newton continues to look tired. Always, when Hermann walks by him in the morning, he is easy to wake, startled to awareness by the opening door more often than Hermann’s quiet greetings. Hermann is embarrassed it has taken him so long to reach his current conclusion--although if he is speaking scientifically, it really is more of a hypothesis.

“Have you been having nightmares since the drift, Newton?”

Hermann’s possessions are lucky Newton is holding none of them. He would have dropped anything in his hands. “Sorry?” Newton says, slow and clear and all the while looking for an exit.

Hermann frowns. “Have you been having nightmares since the Drift?”

Newton, who looks ready to slither out of the room through the crack under the door, hunches his shoulders in and crosses his arms. “Yeah?” he answers, like it’s a question.

“Have you been having them frequently?” Hermann asks. “They have only just started for me, and I only heard you the one evening--but you--I think you have been having them for quite some time. Am I incorrect?”

Newton does not meet his gaze. After a moment, he crosses the room in front of Hermann, nearly close enough to touch. “No,” Newton answers finally. He sits down on the edge of Hermann’s bed and tips his head back, staring at the ceiling. There is trust in the motion--in the ease with which Newton bares his throat in Hermann’s space. It’s a strange thing to notice, but in the wake of so much near-death and destruction, the simple display of trust is--Hermann is surprised by it. “You’re right. I’ve--always had nightmares, but this is new. There’s stuff in there that isn’t mine. I’m having _Kaiju_ nightmares, and wow, I mean that’s really interesting because they have dreams? And the baby…” he trails off, fingering a loose thread of Hermann’s blanket. “It’s just. It’s fascinating--what the nightmares are like. I was trying to write them down. I figured they wouldn’t last, y’know? But they did--and Otachi’s baby--” that’s the second time Newton’s mentioned it in less than thirty seconds. Hermann does not know what to say. Silence for a moment, and finally Newton says: “They didn’t make me do a psych eval. I left Hong Kong--”

“I remember,” Hermann says, quiet. “I was--concerned for your welfare. It was--it was difficult for me, in the immediate aftermath of the drift, that you should have chosen to leave. I was--it would have been difficult to experience what I experienced without the support system of professionals familiar with the drift.” Hermann is talking specifically about Mako. His relations with the medical team had been strained. “But you were gone only two weeks, and then you returned, and still--no evaluation was forced on you.” They haven’t talked about the two week gap that had felt like two years, Newton’s disappearance two days after they’d closed the breach, and his sudden reappearance at an ungodly hour of the morning, sporting a nosebleed and a shocking array of bruises, coloring much of the skin Newton hadn’t yet managed to color with ink. He’d had two fractured ribs, and Hermann had taken him to medical, and it has been months and those two weeks are just another tick on the list of things they haven’t talked about.

“I was afraid of what they would find in my head. I take--you must know, that I’m. Y’know.”

“I am aware,” Hermann says. “You are a brilliant man, Newton. That anyone who has met you has ever tried to make you apologize for anything in your head is a mystery to me.”

“You make me apologize for the things in my head, like, _all the time_ , man. Like the thing with the Kaiju shit--”

Hermann will not let Newton derail this, tempted as he is to fight out this particular line of thought. “That was inappropriate,” Hermann says, “And it is irrelevant. I believe that we may still be experiencing some lingering side effects, perhaps brought on by the inclusion of a hivemind in our drift.” Hermann pauses. “I have never been prone to nightmares, Newton. When I was younger, after my leg, I spent several months in the hospital. It was a beautiful summer that year, crisp skies and soft clouds, and I spent all of it in bed. I rather dislike hospitals, and so I had nightmares. They passed, as these things do, and I have not had them since--except, evidently, for these last few months.”

Newton shrugs, silent.

“This is something we should talk about,” Hermann prompts.

“Can we not, though?” Newton asks. “Because look, I let you into my head, and that’s awesome, and you let me into your head--probably less awesome for you, sorry, and yeah, there’s a little Kaiju-y goodness all up in there and it’s messy, but I don’t want to _talk_ about it because I don’t know how to. Ok?”

Hermann pinches the bridge of his nose, confident at the lack of chalk on his fingers. “Of course, Newton,” he says after a few moments. “I am here, should you decide you are ready to discuss it.”

Newton gets up at that, slipping carefully out of the room. He is not outside the next morning, but Hermann had never fallen asleep--unlike him--so perhaps neither of them had slept at all.

~

Two nights later, Hermann wakes up.

He is not panicked, and his chest is not tight, and there is no sweating or screaming. He had been sleeping, just sleeping. He doesn’t even remember what he had been dreaming about. 

It takes him a moment to discern why he’d woken up--there is a steady tap on his door, almost a polite knocking, and for a moment, Hermann wonders if he’s somehow managed to sleep until the late afternoon. He gets up, pulling on an undershirt and casting an eye around for pajama bottoms before giving up. He’s wearing boxers, at least, and honestly, there is only one possible visitor. Just before he opens the door, he considers how horrified he will be if it is Tendo, or god forbid, Mako, behind the door. He breathes out once, and opens it. 

The hallway is dark and silent, except for Newton. 

Hermann sputters. “What are you doing? Why are you here? What time is it?” and then, delayed, and exasperated, “Newton _what_ are you wearing?”

Newton has the good grace to look sheepish. “That’s a good look for you. Your legs are less chicken-y than I had pictured. I am knocking on your door. Because I haven’t slept in two days, and they tell me that’s bad. It is just after one in the morning, can you believe how quiet this place is right now? Where are all the partiers, man? These new rangers are super fucking lame. We should get more Russians. More Russians who have _vodka_. And I am wearing your pajamas. Which I may have taken. While you were sleeping. Once.”

“I am relieved to know you only took them once,” Hermann says through a sigh.

“No, I mean I took them one time while you were--wait. Was that a joke?”

Hermann sighs again. And then for good measure he does it a third time. “Please try to contain your surprise Newton. It is one in the morning and you are wearing my pajamas, and I am not wearing pajamas at all. One must have levity in these sorts of situations, especially when they involve you. I will go mad otherwise.”

The pajamas in question are comically large on Newton. Every time he moves to adjust his glasses, he has to wriggle his wrist until the sleeves fall down far enough to free his fingers. The bottoms hide most of Newton’s feet, with the exception of the very tips of his toes. Hermann is justifiably horrified that Newton is wandering around the Shatterdome barefoot. Mostly because it is his place of work, but also because it is the _floor of the Shatterdome_ and cleanliness has never exactly been anyone’s mission there. 

The image would really only be completed if Newton were clutching a pillow to his chest and sucking on his thumb. He is, thankfully, doing neither. Hermann takes a deep breath and steps to the side to let Newton in. He hadn’t grabbed his cane in his meander to the door--it isn’t always necessary in the confines of his own quarters, and he’d had no doubt that whatever Newton wanted, he wouldn’t have to leave. He’s tired, however, and wishes for a moment that he had thought to grab it. Just in case.

Newton steps over the threshold and into the room, and he hooks his arm through Hermann’s. “Why thank you, dear fellow, for the invitation. Your chambers are, as always, immaculate,” Newton says, ostentatious. Hermann lets Newton escort him back across the room, and notes with some interest that Newton lets go the moment Hermann feels ready to be let go of, the edge of his desk table firmly beneath his palm. “Anyway, I can’t sleep, dude,” Newton continues. “So I came here. I had sort’ve been hoping you weren’t sleeping either. Clearly not the case.” 

Newton flops back onto Hermann’s bed again, his expression thoughtful as he surveys the room.

“You thought my legs would be chicken like,” Hermann says, surprised at his own outburst, but unable to _not_ fixate on that data point. “You have thought about what my legs look like unclothed and you thought they would be _chicken like_?”

“Well, duh,” Newton says, then, quickly, “Not duh to the chicken legs, duh to the thinking about you--unclothed? I’m just gonna say naked, like a normal person.”

Hermann takes a steady breath and does not say that he, too, has considered the image of his lab partner naked with frightening regularity. He merely sniffs and says, “At least you have the grace to acknowledge they are--” he almost says _nice legs_ , but stops himself at the last moment, “Not resembling poultry in any way.”

Newton wriggles his eyebrows like he knows what Hermann nearly said. He might, in fact. They really need to discuss the aftereffects of the drift one of these days. Hermann suspects a good neurologist is in order, and possibly several psychological evaluations with professionals who will keep their findings secret. He would like to know the answers to all of his questions. It does not mean he would like _Newton_ to know the answers to them. 

“Sit, dude,” Newton says, patting the bed next to him. Hermann’s body, to his brain’s surprise, acquiesces, and he finds himself settling down next to Newton, their thighs pressed together where their legs hang off the edge of the bed. Newton stays quiet for a moment, but it is brief. “So I can stay, right?”

“Yes, Newton,” Hermann says, much too quickly for his liking. “You may stay.”

“Awesome!” Newton replies.

He flops all the way back, his body stretched out across Hermann’s mattress, his legs dangling over the side of his bed. His thigh is still pressed warm against Hermann’s own, and they still have not talked about the nightmares, but that can wait. Perhaps they will be more inclined to speak of all these unspoken things in the morning. 

Newton’s shirt lifts as he stretches out, and there is not an inch of pale, smooth skin to be seen. Instead, between the flannel, button-up pajama top and bottoms, Newton is a swirl of brightbright colors. Hermann reaches out, almost without thinking--but not entirely--and traces one curved line with the tip of his finger. It is a kaiju, but it is also Newton, and both of those things are--beautiful.

Newton stops breathing when Hermann touches him, and Hermann lays his palm flat against Newton’s warm skin, nudging the shirt up higher. He waits, trying to catch Newton’s gaze, and Newton avoids him, resolutely, still not breathing, his body tense under Hermann’s palm.

Newton has hardly been celibate for ten years--and in all fairness, neither had Hermann--, but when Hermann pulls his hand away, Newton sucks in a breath like he’s never known about air before and grabs Hermann’s wrist tightly enough to leave a bruise tomorrow. “It’s ok,” Newton says, still stretched out across Hermann’s blankets, his voice quiet, but not shy. “You don’t have to--go.”

“Well that is a relief,” Hermann says dryly, “As we are in my bed, and I had no intention of leaving it.”

In the immediate aftermath of the drift, Jaeger pilots speak of a hangover. Hermann had experienced it--he imagines that Newton must have as well. It had born remarkable resemblance to the sort of hangover one gets from alcohol, but in all fairness, they had each consumed a fair amount of that. Their connection had felt faded over these last few months, and Hermann will likely never tell anyone about the gaping, black hole sensation he’d experience the first few days of Newton’s two week holiday to god only knows where. He is pleased to reflect that he now has half a dozen people he could tell, and who would listen, and understand. He has always had friends, of course, and colleagues on top that. Always, though, these relationships have been fleeting, and sometimes unwelcome. Hermann is not dishonest with himself; he has not always made an effort to maintain relationships.

Hermann supposes that it would always come to this, this thing ten years in the making, forged by nightmares coming out of the ocean and nightmares in the middle of the night. 

Hermann shifts, twisting his body just enough so that Newton fills his gaze, and he fills Newton’s. He is leaning over him, and Newton’s grip on Hermann’s wrist has slipped so that they’re more holding hands than anything else. Newton is staring at him, his lips parted, his throat bared.

In the last ten years, Hermann has lost and gained so much and the world did not end. He is leaning over Newton, and they are in his bed, and he will regret the way he twists his body in the morning, but tonight he does what he had dreamed about exactly nine years and two months ago, and then again in the two weeks of Newton’s absence. This is ten years coming, an ending to one of the ten thousand stories the near-apocalypse wrote. It’s inevitability doesn’t mean that Hermann won’t enjoy it.

He grips Newton’s wrists, one in each hand, and Newton’s eyes are blown again, and his glasses are crooked, and when Hermann kisses him it is like static shock, the way his body buzzes, and, distantly, the way Newton’s does as well. 

Newton starts talking.

This should not surprise Hermann, but it does. He’d been noticing the way Newton shifted into him, the soft lines of his body flexing and shifting underneath Hermann’s own, the way their mouths slotted together, until they didn’t, and Newton is _talking_.

“I didn’t really say sorry for leaving,” Newton says, and wriggles out from underneath Hermann. He sits up, a flurry of rushed and sudden motions. His mouth his red and his cheeks are flushed and he presses his hands against Hermann’s chest. “I am. I am sorry for leaving you alone when I was inside your head. It sort of felt like I was with you anyway, which makes sense for me but it’s probably not the same for everyone and I left.” 

Hermann had done some quick mental calculations, and the likelihood that Newton would not reciprocate when Hermann kissed him had been so small that he’d never considered--but of course, nonzero means nonzero, and here they are. How foolish of him. Hermann pulls all the way away, at once horrified and disappointed. Newton is still talking, but Hermann has learned to tune him out and so he does, spiraling for a moment in his own abject misery. After a beat, he gathers the edges of himself that he had rolled out to welcome Newton into his orbit, and says, “You are forgiven, of course. I understand--I myself avoided the evaluation, although perhaps with less vigor than you.”

If Newton had not run away, Hermann thinks, they would not have needed to have any sort of conversation at all. The memories would still be there, up front for Hermann to rifle through, a question he would merely need to think about before it was answered. There would have been no articulation of desire--no moment now, in his bed, when he realized that perhaps only he himself thought of this as inevitable.

He thinks about multiplication tables again.

“Earth to Dr. Gottlieb!” Newton says it like he says 75% of anything, too loudly, and too close. Hermann startles, and Newton catches his shoulder, steadying him. “Wow. You are really good at ignoring me. Have you been ignoring me for ten years? I have been spewing brilliance at you for ten years--my brilliance saved the _world_ , ok, I mean, your’s too. Really, but--no, this is so not the point, the point is why did you stop kissing me? I was digging that.”

Newton is looking at him now, and Hermann registers in a distant way that he has been treating Newton as though he is fragile. Newton, who drifted with a kaiju alone, who saved the world with his brilliance, who went to MIT and got six doctorates and came out of everything _just fine thank you_ , who has tattooed the kaiju on his body, who once jumped out of a tree and into a lake to save a frog in danger--and Hermann pauses, because Newton has never told him that story and still, he knows it. 

Hermann lies back slowly. Newton is still there, and he would probably find it rude if Hermann just went to sleep, but he’s tempted, in protest--and his thoughts are sounding like Newton again. It is a strangeness that he cannot shake and does not always wish to, at any rate. When Newton had gone away, there had been a black hole, and then he had come back. And now they are both having nightmares.

The data points add up behind his eyes--when did he close them?--and Hermann assembles them slowly. He has not told Newton that he failed the psychological evaluation. Failed is perhaps a generous term for that particular catastrophe. Still, there were so many factors to consider. The PPDC medical team had done all they knew how, and Hermann had failed his evaluation. _Invaluable_ , Herc Hansen had said to someone only hours after the report hit his desk, and Hermann--briefly relieved of duty--was quietly returned to work. 

He feels a little bit like he cannot breathe, like there is no air left in the room, and Newton--Newton is _still talking_. “Hermann!” he’s saying. He sounds a bit frantic now. “Earth to Hermann. Hermann. Herm. Hey, dude, I am going to hit you in like, twelve seconds. Come back to me.”

Hermann blinks. Newton says, “ten, nine, eight, I’m not fucking kidding Hermann, five, four, _seriously_ , two--”

“You were--digging it--when I kissed you?”

“Oh my god, are you ok? Where were you just then? Yes. Of course. Yes. Man, I practically got ‘hopelessly devoted to you’ tattooed on my forehead Hermann--hey, that’s not a bad ide--ok yes it it. Point being, duh. Duh. _Duh_.”

And then, Hermann assumes, just to dispel any lingering doubt, Newton deposits himself in Hermann’s lap and kisses him.

It’s a shade too frantic for Hermann’s taste, all teeth and tongue and clumsy hands on Newton’s part, but he can’t really complain. 

Kissing Newton is not any less enthralling the second time around. He does not cease being a frenzy of motion, but his skin is warm, and his mouth eager. He pushes Hermann back slowly, laying him out against the pillows and slotting their hips together.

Hermann makes a small, strangled sound that he will never admit to making, ever, and Newton breaks the kiss to laugh. Hermann frowns, pushing Newton’s chest and so Newton bites his lower lip. Hermann slides a hand through Newton’s hair, and looks at him, thoughtful.

Newton smiles down at him. His glasses are crooked, and after a moment, he rolls off and lies down, stretched onto his back. Hermann lifts himself up on one elbow, watching with what he hopes resembles only mild interest as Newton slowly undoes each of the buttons on his nightshirt. 

Hermann has been privately enjoying the image of Newton in his clothing. He suspects he will enjoy the image of Newton without even more. “Newton,” he says, exasperated. “What are you doing?”

“I’m hot,” Newton half whines. “I can’t sleep in all this fabric, dude,” and then he sits up and throws the shirt haphazardly across the room. It catches on Hermann’s desk lamp, and the whole thing crashes to the floor with a truly spectacular amount of noise.

Hermann turns back to Newton, who has not had even the good grace to _feign_ sheepishness, and stops short, staring.

Even in the dimmer light--Newton had effectively destroyed one of Hermann’s two lamps--the full view of the tattoos that cover Newton’s body is breathtaking. 

For a moment, Newton looks unsure, but Hermann reaches out and clasps a hand behind the back of Newton’s head, dragging him in for another kiss. He will never admit the eagerness with which he explores every inch of those tattoos, tracing curls and colors with fingers and tongue, Newton laid out beneath him. He suspects Newton will keep this secret, as well.

They fall asleep like that, Hermann tucked as best as he can manage into Newton’s side. 

They have no nightmares that night. 

~

Newton wakes up screaming. Hermann knows this because he hears him. He hears him before the sounds leave Newton’s mouth and so he is awake to grasp Newton by the shoulders and pull him back to the waking world. It has been two months, and the nightmares have not left, but they are not so insistent. For Hermann, at least. Newton still wakes up struggling through a fogged memory of something terrible at least two nights a week.

“Newton,” Hermann says, his voice firm, and Newton jolts against his chest before going completely still. He is breathing hard, but it will pass. It always does.

“This fucking sucks,” Newton gasps, not a little desperate, and scrabbling for purchase with sweat slick fingers against Hermann’s chest.

“Indeed,” Hermann agrees. “It will pass.”

He leans down and presses his lips against Newton’s forehead. “Would you like some tea?” he asks, tipping Newton’s face up and punctuating the offer with a kiss.

“No,” Newton breathes, and Hermann’s hand slides low on his hip, rubbing small circles with his thumb.

“Indeed,” Hermann says through half a smile. “Perhaps we’ll have to think of something else.”

Newton rides him, sweating now, and gasping, and he moans Hermann’s name when he comes, and collapses, boneless on the mattress next to Hermann. And then he says, because he has he has absolutely no decorum at all, “Sometimes nightmares can have happy endings!”

And Hermann smacks him with the nearest unfinished report that he can find.

And they both go back to sleep.


End file.
